Chris explores how a non-fiction writing buddy app might work. Christian ponders if freemium is a good fit for his app or not and talks about progress on his time tracking app. 00:00 Intro 00:25 We made attaboy.ai 01:51 Offline vs online AI 06:41 Deploying web apps with Vercel and Netlify 08:24 Non-fiction writing tools 23:20 Chris starts his masters 24:05 AI generated narratives 31:38 Is freemium a good idea? 43:05 Time tracking project progress 51:22 Talk to your customers 55:04 Holding office...
Sep 15, 2021•58 min•Ep. 40
Christian gives up on a project and Chris convinces him that it's actually a big win. Chris is about to finish his summer work and start his masters. Also: How much is a SaaS worth? Is $100k too much to pay for a SaaS that only makes $600 per month? 00:00 Intro 01:10 attaboy.ai 04:58 Chris finishes summer work 11:47 0-shot learning 14:18 The logistics of an online masters program 21:28 Wacky AI experiments 24:31 Instagram vs twitter vs tik tok vs youtube 26:58 First paying customer! 28:55 Give u...
Sep 02, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 39
Who wants to take bets about when Tesla Bot will be ready? Chris is finishing up his summer consulting project and getting ready to start his CS Masters program. Christian spent 0 hours on fileinbox last week, and instead created a mini web app to show people's "life timelines"... was that time well spent? 00:00 Intro 06:25 Using AI for a large variety of problems 12:54 Tesla bot 18:05 Is Elon Musk a positive or negative role model? 21:46 Singular minded focus 24:39 Chewing glass and staring int...
Aug 26, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 38
How do you feel about NFTs? Chris has finished his GPS competition and is now using his fancy GPU to generate AI art. Christian got clips.marketing past his internal goal line! Now he has to figure out the next steps. We also talk about a potential business idea for sharing family photos 00:00 Intro 00:14 Kids back in school 05:35 Chris got 5th place in the GPS competition 10:03 Learning new things: projects vs classes 16:43 Using AI to generate art 17:55 AI art web app hot take 20:57 NFTs 27:03...
Aug 19, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 37
How do you decide what to work on every day when there's no one really telling you what to do? Christian thinks about ways to keep himself on track, and Chris talks about what motivates him to do Kaggle competitions (hint: it's not money). 00:00 Intro 00:58 GPS competition update 06:29 Olympics data scraping 08:41 Chris's summer work with Hidden Door 12:38 How to choose a day/time for different timezones 29:46 Productivity and the most important work you can be doing 35:54 Sometimes you just hav...
Aug 05, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 36
Christian gets back from New York with an unwelcome update, but is plowing ahead by taking care of himself first. Chris has a new contract for the summer - his first AI position! Then we talk about how great SaaS is compared to other assets. 00:00 The Lost Episode 01:51 Health is important - take care of it! 08:22 The most effective productivity hack 10:15 GPS competition update 17:51 Chris's new job! (for 2 months) 22:43 Are educational games always too contrived? 29:22 Christian geeks out abou...
Aug 01, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 35
Learning AI is like learning to program all over again. Christian tries to plan what an AI based text-bot business would look like. Chris talks about an AI coding assistant (we recorded this before GitHub copilot was released :0 ), and we both marvel as self driving cars. 00:00 Intro 03:46 GPS data competition basics 08:04 Time is hard 11:56 GPS data formats 14:45 The AI Hammer 16:43 Christian experiences self driving 18:21 Tensorflow.js 22:42 Prebuilt AI models 25:35 AI business idea progressio...
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 34
Chris gets stuck on his kaggle competition and when trying to figure out how to move forward, started researching how to buy a farm :). Christian asks about how AI works and also talks about how he got ffmpeg working in the cloud. 00:00 Intro 02:20 The ability to take time off 03:48 Pushing forward when you feel stuck 09:46 Exciting work - buying land 16:37 Self driving cars 25:29 How AI works 40:01 What is the difference between AI and ML? 46:04 What is the future of work? 50:47 Robotics is har...
Jul 05, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 33
Christian gets advice about how to focus to make more money... but is that what he wants? We also talk about how to start and maintain programming projects as a solo dev. 00:00 Intro 03:47 Chris's next week 05:20 Learning math for a masters - making a product from it? 10:52 Short form content plays better in today's world 13:56 What kind of assistant aligns with Christian's business goals? 19:34 Focus to make more money? 33:36 Using business skills for personal projects 38:46 How to start a new ...
Jun 24, 2021•56 min•Ep. 32
If you could just spend money to save time - would you do it? Where is that line? Christian explores a personal assistant and Chris finally gets his new computer. 00:00 Intro 00:04 New computer 03:03 Camping and shiny toys 07:12 Freeze dryer 16:13 Exposing yourself to different ideas 17:43 Selling the core thing vs selling an experience 21:07 The value to the customer 25:07 Chris update 27:54 Apple is focused on the story 29:12 Novelty 32:30 Passion 35:36 Christian update 39:33 "Why don't you ju...
Jun 17, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 31
Even if you don't have ADHD, learning about your brain and how it works will pay dividends for your entire life. We chat with Jesse J. Anderson about his journey with ADHD, what symptoms to look for if you think you might have it, and some processes and systems you can try to get a handle on it. If you want to hear more, check out Jesse on twitter! https://twitter.com/jessejanderson 00:00 Intro 00:53 How Jesse came to learn about ADHD 03:28 ADHD symptoms and behavior 07:32 Where's the line? What...
Jun 08, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 30
Competition isn't bad, it's good! If you target a narrow market and tell your story, then people will buy your product just for that. This week, Christian figures out who to hire first and Chris preps for his CS masters to start. 00:00 Intro 03:13 Podcasts are cool 04:13 Next week: ADHD chat 06:28 Prepping for a CS masters 10:30 Teaching as you learn 16:38 Future Christian tells past Christian who to hire 26:36 Activation energy to hire someone 30:56 Choosing what you spend time on 36:00 Hot tak...
Jun 04, 2021•52 min•Ep. 29
Chris has big news about the next few years. Christian thinks about how and who to hire. Also, we talk about ADHD again: how to handle it, and what it means. 00:00 Intro 00:29 Meal prep 03:29 Solving AI problems 08:38 MS CS 10:40 Why get a college degree? 15:28 What makes someone a student? 17:10 Work in Progress update 19:56 Having more capacity to do work 25:48 Live streaming as accountability for work 31:50 ADHD behaviors and tactics 45:35 How to get started in practical AI 47:38 Who and how ...
May 29, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 28
Chris's Kaggle competition wrapped up and he finished in 5th! Christian goes on a hunt to figure out what is wrong with his parents house, and contemplates what the future of life and business is once an AI is better than humans at most things. 00:00 Intro 02:29 Chris finally bought a computer 12:39 GPT-3 and the future of AI 21:52 Home diagnosis 33:11 How do you curate when there's too much information? 35:28 Dusting tips with Chris and Christian 37:47 Negative externalities 42:05 Makermade CNC...
May 24, 2021•45 min•Ep. 27
Burnout is sneaky. Chris and Christian talk about what makes work meaningful, and how to find that work. Christian talks about onboarding and how many info products get the checkout flow all wrong. Also, Christian is building a tiny house and is super excited about it. 00:00 Intro 01:29 Burnout 09:22 AI Update 11:10 What makes work exciting? 16:44 Work in progress 18:51 Deep learning machine 21:09 Meaningful work 23:28 COVID 25:17 Tiny houses 29:04 Improving checkout flows and onboarding 33:32 H...
May 13, 2021•50 min•Ep. 26
How much would you spend to increase your MRR by $1000? Christian thinks he has been thinking about customer acquisition all wrong, and could be spending a lot more to get customers. 00:00 Intro 00:26 Kaggle contest update 06:34 Christian had A WEEK 13:53 Making a super simple info product 21:48 How much is $1000 MRR worth? 26:57 LTV = ARPU / Churn 31:09 Acquiring a small saas or info product Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco Profitwell blog: https://www.profitwell.com/r...
May 10, 2021•36 min•Ep. 25
Chris talks about overfitting to the public leaderboard (on Kaggle and in life), and Christian tries to figure out a direction for two different projects: a hierarchical book reader (or writer?), and his timetracking app: should he go more B2B, or be more like Scott's Cheap Flights or Nomad List? 00:00 Intro 02:48 Overfitting to the public leaderboard 06:48 Different approaches to life, business and problems 11:40 Buying a new computer? 20:04 SaaS Work in Progress and 30x500 23:03 Hot Take: hier...
Apr 29, 2021•49 min•Ep. 24
Christian is out this week so Chris is joined by Matt Swanson (https://twitter.com/_swanson). We talk about making decisions about features and user roles in his software consulting role, how he grew a twitter audience to 4,000 and what he learned, and "Boring Rails", his latest project, where he talks about writing software using the tride-and-true "boring" rails stack.
Apr 27, 2021•53 min•Ep. 23
Both of us refocus on the businesses we had when we started makers.dev, and we become each other's boss again. 00:00 Intro 01:38 Taking breaks is good for work 03:52 Chris's update - AI plus WIP 09:25 Specific marketing next steps 21:39 A tool for finding "watering holes" 23:54 Make specific next steps and cultivate long term habits 31:12 Chris might buy a computer 34:12 The most effective way to allocate money 44:17 Should Christian transition to serverless? 49:44 Making plugins for every site ...
Apr 16, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 22
Chris dives deeper into data science and complains that crypto currency miners are buying all the graphics cards. Christian talks about how to decide what to work on, plus has 6 new business ideas to think about. 00:00 Intro 01:11 Chris's projects 03:43 When to buy vs rent (graphics cards and more) 12:34 Trying to rise in a Kaggle competition 16:44 MeetingPlace - what to do next, committing to action 23:55 Mining Ethereum 30:40 Hot take 1: better YouTube suggestions 35:08 *YouTube history tip* 3...
Apr 01, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 21
Chris enters a Kaggle competition to expand his data science skills, and Christian tries to figure out what to work on and how to prioritize time. We also talk about personality and learning traits, and how we get things done. 00:00 Intro 01:23 Data science update 02:37 Kaggle indoor positioning competition 11:51 How Chris dives into learning a new topic 14:18 Balancing short term vs long term 17:02 ADHD styles of getting things done 22:53 Studying personality 27:06 Christian defeats email mount...
Mar 26, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 20
Chris talks about learning more AI and ML, and how learning that is helping as he teaches others. Christian is about to get a new 3D printer, and talks about how it's so cool that we can just download and print real things - we're living in the future. 00:00 Intro 02:15 Doing things under your own name vs a new domain name 07:18 Learning new things makes you a better educator 09:27 Consuming the content you create is important in business 14:33 Penny wise and pound foolish 19:11 Paying money for...
Mar 18, 2021•59 min•Ep. 19
"Christian just do your emails" 00:00 Plumbing problems 01:31 When do you outsource vs. do it yourself? 13:18 Chris's AI research 17:38 Overview of Machine Learning 22:24 PyTorch vs. TensorFlow 26:02 Python, Javascript, and Ruby 29:41 Slogging through email 33:34 Email systems 40:43 Bookmark bankruptcy 41:44 Zettelkasten Google Search browser plugin HOT TAKE 44:34 Just do your emails Christian Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco 9️⃣MNIST number dataset AI practice: https:/...
Mar 10, 2021•50 min•Ep. 18
Apparently makers.dev is now the #1 Entrepreneurship podcast in Albania 00:00 Intro 01:45 2^4 episodes and the #1 Albanian Entrepreneurship Podcast 04:00 Chris's GAN AI research 09:32 How hard is it to make a GAN? 14:56 Feeling like you should be working on something else 21:31 EMAIL 24:56 Building a book reader in public 28:47 Orders of magnitude of views vs. engagement 31:12 Letting projects incubate 36:28 Boutique paper scanning business idea #HOTTAKES 41:40 Google lockout insurance #HOTTAKES...
Mar 03, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 17
Eight new ideas hot and fresh from a week of impromptu urban camping in Dallas, Texas. 00:00 SNOVID 02:39 Iceballs 03:43 Acorn Chat 04:44 Standard landing page vs. Long Form Copy 09:52 AB testing 14:55 SNOVID idea #HOTTAKES 16:30 Amazon mobile app for all Shopify stores idea 19:07 donotcall.dev API idea 22:13 ffmpeg as a service idea 27:47 transcriptions with a good API idea 32:43 Every YouTube channel is a podcast idea 35:18 Custom email frontend idea 40:18 Positive feedback hotline idea 44:50 ...
Feb 24, 2021•58 min•Ep. 16
Perfect is the enemy of good, show your work, and get more of yourself out there. 00:00 Keeping the monkey healthy 03:00 Crunched audio? 05:02 Building Acorn Chat in a week 13:15 Why have separate app. and www. subdomains? 18:44 Embedded customizable .ejs templates per customer 21:13 Perfect is the enemy of good 24:00 The next 48 hours for Acorn Chat 27:08 Clips.marketing goals were CRUSHED 31:29 Show your work 42:56 Acorn Chat on Fileinbox? 46:20 Next week Timestamps created with https://clips....
Feb 13, 2021•51 min•Ep. 15
Virtual Reality, project prioritization, and smart but upset tummies 00:00 Intro 00:56 Syndicating makers.dev clips 03:35 Clips.marketing as a consultancy vs. SaaS 13:58 Avoidant attachment style 16:00 Virtual Reality and the Oculus Quest 2 19:21 Unity VR development 21:23 Chris's 17 projects from 2020 26:02 How do you prioritize what to work on next? 31:22 Optimizing for fun work is important 34:23 Runway anxiety and optimization 39:31 Kids are productively challenging 42:14 Is your stomach or ...
Feb 03, 2021•56 min•Ep. 14
00:00 Christian and Chris are converging 00:40 Maker.dev interactions on twitter 01:47 Audio quality is bad and it's not the microphone's fault 04:56 Chris's talking head videos 08:46 Why is Facebook's moneymaker backend so bad? 15:01 What's the plan for clips.marketing? 20:52 Build your audience first (unless you can build really quickly and cheaply) 26:16 Manually onboard to make sure you talk to customers 28:24 Talk to dirty messy humans about their FeElInGs 30:48 Clips.marketing as a product...
Jan 27, 2021•43 min•Ep. 13
Apparently "worse is better" is how you get Christian to buy things. 00:00 Intro 00:23 Seeing the zoo through a child's eyes 02:56 Kids are like startups 05:27 Stripe Checkout 13:53 Microphone upgrades 17:52 Camera upgrades 21:54 Aspirational purchases 22:31 How would you live differently with more money? 28:25 A programmable phone in search of a problem and audience 34:40 Next week's plans Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco 💳 Stripe Checkout: https://stripe.com/payments...
Jan 20, 2021•38 min•Ep. 12
It's usually better to just get something done and out there rather than obsess over every little detail. Christian also figures out a better way to handle customer support emails.
Jan 17, 2021•58 min•Ep. 11
